The invention relates to the drying of printed or inked webs by means of heat.
In known driers the web to be dried is guided through a tunnel in which the web has hot air blown on to it on both sides and therefore has to be guided in a free-floating manner. However, with such a contactless drying process the heat transfer is very small, so that the drying tunnel has to be made comparatively long. A further disadvantage of known driers is that, because of the high expenditure of energy, the efficiency is extremely low. In the manufacture of paper it is already known to guide the damp web over heated rollers, with the result that the moisture contained in the paper web is evaporated by the hot contact. Although this method is suitable for the drying of damp paper webs, it is not suitable for the drying of printed webs, since the fresh ink would be deposited on the rollers and the ink would be smudged.